Gigabytes per Second (GB/s)
Gigabytes per second (GB/s) is a unit of data transfer rate that measures how much data can be moved per second between two components in a computing system, such as between a processor and memory, or across a network. It is commonly used to express the memory bandwidth of GPUs, CPUs, and storage systems. For instance, a GPU with a memory bandwidth of 1,018 GB/s, such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, can transfer over a gigabyte of data every millisecond, enabling high-performance computing tasks like real-time ray tracing and AI model inference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_bandwidth
The significance of GB/s in computing is especially evident in high-performance systems, where tasks like data analytics and machine learning require rapid access to large datasets. Technologies like PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 interfaces, introduced in 2017 and 2019 respectively, have increased the data transfer rates between components, achieving up to 32 GB/s in PCIe 4.0 and 64 GB/s in PCIe 5.0. These advancements reduce latency and bottlenecks, making GB/s a critical metric for evaluating system performance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
In addition to hardware components, storage systems also use GB/s to measure data throughput. High-speed storage technologies like NVMe SSDs leverage GB/s to enable fast read and write speeds, critical for tasks like large file transfers, gaming, and video editing. For example, the Samsung 990 Pro SSD, introduced in 2022, boasts sequential read speeds of up to 7.45 GB/s. As computational demands continue to grow, achieving higher GB/s throughput will remain a focus for both consumer and enterprise technologies.